{1} Employer/ Insurer appeals from the
Workers' Compensation Administration's (WCA's)
order awarding supplemental compensation. [RP 162, 171] This
Court issued a notice of proposed disposition proposing to
dismiss Employer/Insurer's appeal for lack of a timely
notice of appeal. Employer/Insurer has responded with a
memorandum in opposition to this Court's notice of
proposed disposition, which we have duly considered.
Unpersuaded, we dismiss.

{2}
As we noted in this Court's notice of proposed
disposition, the WCA filed its supplemental compensation
order on August 19, 2016, but a notice of appeal was not
filed with this Court until October 12, 2016. [CN 2] While we
noted that Employer/Insurer had filed a notice of appeal with
the WCA on September 8, 2016, we also pointed out that
pursuant to Rule 12-601 NMRA and NMSA 1978, Section 52-5-8
(1989), a notice of appeal from a decision of the WCA must be
timely filed in the Court of Appeals. [CN 3]

{3}
Employer/Insurer has acknowledged in its memorandum in
opposition that its notice of appeal was mistakenly filed
with the WCA. [MIO 1] Employer/Insurer, however, asks this
Court to exercise its discretion to consider the merits of
its appeal despite this discrepancy with the place of filing.
Specifically, Employer/Insurer asserts that "the error
was inadvertent and resulted in no prejudice to the rights of
Worker-Appellee because the notice timely notified her of
Appellant's intention to appeal within 30 days of the WCA
decision at issue." [MIO 1-2] Employer/Insurer relies on
our Supreme Court's stated preference for hearing appeals
on their merits rather than dismissing them for technical
deficiencies to support its request. [MIO 2]

{4} The policy to which Employer/Insurer
refers is found in Govich v. NorthAmerican
Systems, Inc.,

While we recently held that appellate rules for the time and
place of filing a notice of appeal govern the proper
invocation of our jurisdiction, we also have stated the
policy of facilitating the right of appeal by liberally
construing technical deficiencies in a notice of appeal
otherwise satisfying the time and place of filing
requirements. The constitutional mandate that "an
aggrieved party shall have the absolute right to one
appeal" evinces the strong policy in this state that
courts should facilitate, rather than hinder, the right to
one appeal. Justice Montgomery explored this concept
eloquently in his dissent to Lowe [v. Bloom,
1990-NMSC-069, 110 N.M. 555, 798 P.2d 156]. As a matter of
terminology, we properly should refer hereafter to the
mandatory sections of our rules of appellate practice as
"mandatory" and discard the term
"jurisdictional" that has been used over time by
most federal and state courts to describe a mandatory
precondition to the exercise of jurisdiction. We strictly
adhere to jurisdictional subject matter limits on this Court
and we cannot exercise our discretion with respect to such
questions. Though we have stated in categorical terms
that we cannot entertain an appeal when the notice does not
satisfy the requirements for time and place of filing, what
we in essence have held is simply that, with respect to the
mandates for time and place of filing the notice of appeal,
we decline to exercise discretion to excuse or justify any
improper attempt to invoke our jurisdiction. It is
probably imprecise to say we cannot exercise such discretion.

{5} While it is true that our courts have a
policy of exercising discretion to hear the merits of an
appeal despite technical violations of our rules, we do not
define failure to adhere to time and place of filing as
"technical" violations. See id. (stating
"the policy of facilitating the right of appeal by
liberally construing technical deficiencies in a notice of
appeal otherwise satisfying the time and place of filing
requirements" (emphasis added)). Rather, when the
deficiency with the nature of the appeal relates to the time
or place of filing, these are considered a failure to
properly invoke our jurisdiction-i.e., a failure to comply
with the mandatory preconditions to the exercise of our
jurisdiction. See, e.g., Lowe1990-NMSC-069, ¶
3 (holding that an appellant who filed a notice of appeal
with the clerk of the court of appeals rather than with the
clerk of the district court did not comply with the
place-of-filing requirement of Paragraph A of Rule 12-202
NMRA, and therefore, this Court was without jurisdiction to
consider the appeal); cf. Trujillo v. Serrano,
1994-NMSC-024, ¶ 14, 117 N.M. 273, 871 P.2d 369
(discussing that the filing of a timely notice of appeal is
better described as a mandatory precondition to the exercise
of jurisdiction rather than an absolute jurisdictional
requirement). Where a party has failed to properly invoke the
jurisdiction of this Court, we have placed clear limitations
on when this Court will exercise its discretion to hear the
merits of an otherwise improperly filed appeal. Generally, we
decline to hear such cases absent unusual circumstances.
See Romerov. Pueblo of Sandia,
2003-NMCA-137, ¶ 6, 134 N.M. 553, 80 P.3d 490
(recognizing that this Court will not ordinarily entertain an
appeal in the absence of a timely notice, but that unusual
circumstances create an exception that "warrants
permitting an untimely appeal" (alteration, internal
quotation marks, and citation omitted)). However,
"[o]nly the most unusual circumstances beyond the
control of the parties-such as error on the part of the
court-will warrant overlooking procedural defects."
See Trujillo, 1994-NMSC-024, ¶ 19. Mistake or
inadvertence of counsel does not meet this standard. See
State v. Upchurch, 2006-NMCA-076, ¶ 5, 139 N.M.
739, 137 P.3d 679 (refusing to consider the state's
argument that there was no prejudice to the opposing party
resulting from the untimely appeal and concluding that the
state's inadvertence did not constitute an unusual
circumstance to "justify our discretion to entertain
[an] untimely appeal").

{6}
Accordingly, for the reasons discussed above and those
contained in this Court's notice of proposed disposition,
Employer/Insurer's appeal is dismissed

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{7}
IT ...

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